PARIS (AFP)
Approaching 80 with a handful of Oscars under his belt, American
film veteran Woody Allen says what drives him still is the desire
to make a great movie.
"I'm 76 now so I don't think that's going to happen, but I keep
trying," he told journalists in Paris in his typical
self-deprecating fashion.
"I would like to make a movie that I could... show unashamedly at
a film festival" alongside the likes of "Rashomon", "The Seventh
Seal", or "8 1/2" -- movies he considers masterpieces, he said.
Of the 45-odd films he has made, about six or eight were "better
than the others", Allen said, but "I would like to make a great
movie and that drives me".
Allen was in the French capital to promote his latest offering,
"To Rome with Love", which stars Penelope Cruz, Alec Baldwin and
Roberto Benigni and sports an appearance by the director himself.
A tragi-comic study of relationships and the fickleness of
celebrity, Allen said the film, like all his stories, has "a sad
underside".
"Underneath every story that I write, even if they are played out
in a comic manner, there is a sad kind of reality to them," he
said.
"In the film I make the point that life is very difficult whether
you are a celebrity or not a celebrity."
